In the visual thalamus, neurons are in contact with both eyes but respond to only one

The visual thalamus is classically known to relay visual stimuli coming from the retina to the cerebral cortex. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology now show that although neurons in the mouse visual thalamus connect to both eyes, they establish strong functional connections only with one retina. These results settle partly contradictory results of earlier studies and demonstrate how important it can be to complement structural data with functional analyses.